Environmental Ethics

Environmental Ethics
Environmental ethics is the discipline in
philosophy that studies the moral relationship
of human beings to, and also the value and
moral status of, the environment and its
nonhuman contents.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Different Foci of Environmental Ethics
1. Anthropocentric
Human centered
The environment has value only for what it can
provide for us
 Value of Environment
Instrumental Value
The environment has value because it helps
people to reach some end
Food
Shelter
Clothing
Medicine
Entertainment
 Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem Services are the processes by which
the environment produces resources that we
often take for granted such as clean water,
timber, and habitat for fisheries, and
pollination of native and agricultural plants.

Ecological Society of America

 Ecosystem Services
moderate weather extremes and their impacts
disperse seeds
mitigate drought and floods
protect people from the suns harmful ultraviolet rays
cycle and move nutrients
protect stream and river channels and coastal shores from erosion
detoxify and decompose wastes
control agricultural pests
maintain biodiversity
generate and preserve soils and renew their fertility
contribute to climate stability
purify the air and water
regulate disease carrying organisms
pollinate crops and natural vegetation
 Value of Ecosystem Services
In the 1990s a group of ecologists attempted
to estimate the monetary value of ecosystem
services
Estimates ranged from 18 52 trillion dollars!
Mean- 33 trillion

Equal to 1.8 times the GDP of the USA

 Frontier Ethic
A frontier ethic assumes that the earth has an
unlimited supply of resources.
If resources run out in one area, more can be
found elsewhere or alternatively human
ingenuity will find substitutes.
This attitude sees humans as masters who
manage the planet.

Cnx.org
 Judeo-Christian Ethic
Genesis 1 28
And God blessed them, and God said to them,
"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and
subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of
the sea and over the birds of the air and over
every living thing that moves upon the earth."
Different Foci of Environmental Ethics
2. Biocentric ethic
- views all life as possessing intrinsic value.

Intrinsic value
Aspects of the environment have inherent value
just because they exist

http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/envethics
/biocentric.htm
 Biocentric Ethic
an individualistic biocentric ethic recognizes
intrinsic value in every living thing
a holistic biocentric ethic recognizes species or
aggregates of living things
species are not living, so some argue that it is not
possible to have holistic approach because
species are not living
 Biocentric Ethic
an egalitarian biocentric
ethic accords equal
value to all living things
A nonegalitarian
biocentric ethic would
give greater value to
certain living things
over others.
 Foci of Environmental Ethics
Ecocentric ethic
All aspects of the
environment, both living
and non-living, have
inherent value
 Land Ethic
Developed by American Aldo Leopold
Sand County Almanac- 1939
Leopold thought that ethics direct individuals
to cooperate with each other for the mutual
benet of all.
He argued that this community should be
enlarged to include non-human elements such
as soils, waters, plants, and animals, or
collectively: the land.
Aldo Leopold
Leopold On His Farm in Wisconsin
 Leopold Quotes
That land is a community is the basic concept
of ecology, but that land is to be loved and
respected is an extension of ethics.

A land ethic, then, reects the existence of an

ecological conscience, and this in turn reects
a conviction of individual responsibility for the
health of land.
 Stewardship Ethic
The Stewardship Ethic claims that because
they have superior intellect, it is ethically
correct that humans act as stewards of the
land.

OK, to use earth to provide our needs, but we

need to do so in a sustainable manner.

Sustainability Ethic
 Environmentalist Christian View
More recently some
Christians and Christian
groups have argued that
dominion should be
interpreted to mean
stewardship
 Deep Ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary
ecological philosophy that
recognizes an inherent worth of
other beings, aside from their
utility. The philosophy
emphasizes the interdependence
of organisms
within ecosystems and that of
ecosystems with each other
within the biosphere.

Norweigan Arne Naes- 1970s

Wikipedia
 Deep Ecology
core principle is the belief that, like humanity, the
living environment as a whole has the
same right to live and flourish.

Deep ecology describes itself as "deep" because

it persists in asking deeper questions concerning
"why" and "how" and thus is concerned with the
fundamental philosophical questions about the
impacts of human life as one part of
the ecosphere, rather than with a narrow view
of ecology as a branch of biological science.
 Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social
and political movement
which points to the
existence of
considerable common
ground between
environmentalism and
feminism with some
currents linking deep
ecology and feminism.
Wikipedia
 Ecofeminism
Ecofeminists argue that important experiential,
theoretical, and linguistic parallels exist between
the oppression and subordination
of women and nature in Western cultural
tradition through the transformation of
differences into culturally constructed conceptual
binaries and ideological hierarchies that allow a
systematic justification of domination ("power-
over power") by subjects classed into higher-
ranking categories over objects classed into
lower-ranking categories (e.g. man over
woman, culture over nature)